patents

I am not sure, but I think they expire after 20 years. The whole point is that if you are not smart enough to make money off your invention, let others try.

It depends what the patent is for as to whether maintenance fee apply. If you feel that what you wish to patent does not have the value to support itself why bother.

My take on patents is, It's not worth the paper it is written on until it is held up in court. With that in mind a product must be very lucrative to justify the patent and litigation cost. Sad, but that is the current state of the lawyer run world.

Please go to the website here: Patents ›

A patent is worthless unless you are prepared to pay an attorney in case of infringment.

It goes like this: You work hard and develop a widget that peels onions, one layer at a time.

Then you either pay a patent attorney to file or go to a "patent helper organization".

Either case will cost you, somehow.

Now, you find a way to produce onion peelers and start selling them.

Then some shady guys, like KrisDel™, come out with a copy of your peeler.

Now, you'll need that attorney to tell you if shady guys have infringed, or not.

Chances are good that attorney will advise you that they have. So, atty. will begin by writing a threatening letter to shady guys telling them to cease selling their peeler or you will be forced to sue.

They tell your attorney to get bent. He's billing you $250.00 USD/ hour for this.

Then atty. says lets sue the pants off shady guys. Do you have any money left?

The lawsuit begins and before the case can be resolved, shady guys have stolen half your market and you are out of money.

Or worse yet, you die of old age waiting, because it's been two years since you first hired atty.

It kinda depends on your widget.

I know this doesn't really answer your questions. I was involved in a lawsuit that was started in 1975 and I didn't testify in court until 1990.(This was not a patent case, and involved a large company with a staff of dozens of lwayers who delayed at every turn.

One more caveat; after the legal process has run it's course and you are awarded umpteen millions by the court Mr. Shady guy files bankruptcy and you never see a cent.

Does a patent attorney usually help in an infringement litigation, or are his services only to help issue a patent.

He'd be at the table with the big dog and the injured party. If it was big $. He is the architect of the patent.

If you've never had a patent attorney you don't know. At least in my case, with a company that already had a few, he knew the technology and would be very credible.

And, we clashed over how, how much and when to add clarity to the text. In the end I conceded or 90% of the issues. My rights were assigned to my employer anyway. I was just the inventor.